I Had a Father, I Just Didn’t Get to Have One (PT1)

I started asking people what it felt like to have a father.Not because I didn’t have one. I did.He was alive for most of my childhood.I knew his face. I knew his name. I knew where he lived. I knew that if someone asked me, “Where’s your dad?” I could point at a person and say,“That’s my dad.”So technically, I had a father. But I didn’t grow up with one. I grew up with my mum.And don’t get me wrong, my mum was everything. She was there. She was the one I came home to. The one who worried about me. The one who knew when something was wrong even when I insisted I was fine.She was available. She loved me loudly and quietly and in every way a mother knows how to love her child. I never had to wonder if my mother would show up. She always did. But my dad was different.Sometimes, he would come around.Sometimes, he wanted to see us.Sometimes, we’d get a few hours with him.And then he’d leave.That was it. A few hours. I never got the experience of waking up in the same house as my father.I never got to spend a night with him.I never got to randomly walk into a room and find him there.I never got to complain that he was disturbing my sleep.I never got to hear him call my name from another room.I never got to experience the ordinary things people don’t realize are privileges until they don’t have them. For me, seeing my dad was an event.And maybe that’s why I never really questioned it when I was younger.I knew he was my dad. I knew he existed.So what exactly was there to miss?Then he died. And somehow, his death made me realize how little of him I had actually experienced. Before he died, I could still tell myself,At least I have a dad.Even if I didn’t talk to him every day. Even if I didn’t live with him. Even if I only saw him once in a while. He was still there.Somewhere. Alive. And I think there’s a strange comfort in knowing that someone exists, even when they’re not present in your life the way you wish they were. Then he died.And suddenly, there was no somewhere anymore.There was just was. That’s when I started wondering what I had missed.So I began asking people.“What’s it like having a father who is actually around?”One person told me, “My dad is the first person I call when something happens.”I nodded.Another said,“Whenever I’m going somewhere, I tell my dad. He always wants to know where I am.”Another laughed and said,“My dad annoys me so much. Sometimes I wish he’d just leave me alone.”I laughed too. But something inside me became quiet.Because I realized…I’ve never had anyone to annoy me like that. Someone told me about how their father used to wait for them after school.Another talked about their dad teaching them how to drive.Someone else said their father was the person who gave them advice whenever they didn’t know what to do.And I kept listening.I kept asking questions. “Really?”“What does that feel like?”“You actually call him when you’re scared?”“He does that?” And then I went home and thought about it.I’ve spent so much of my life knowing that I had a father…that I never realized I didn’t know what having a father felt like.Maybe that’s the part that hurts the most.Not that I didn’t have one.But that I had just enough of him to know what I was missing.And now that he’s gone, I can’t even find out.I can ask other people what it feels like.I can listen to their stories.I can imagine it.But I’ll never know what it would have felt like for me.Because the version of my father that I knew is the only version I’ll ever get. And sometimes I wonder… if he had stayed longer, if I had grown up with him, if I had gotten those ordinary moments everyone else talks about… would I be a different person? Would I feel differently about love? About men? About being wanted? About people leaving? I don’t know.Maybe I’m overthinking it.Maybe I’m not. But lately, I’ve realized something. You can grieve someone you’ve lost… and still grieve the relationship you never got to have with them.And I think I’m doing both.

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